The exemplary embodiment relates to the field of digital image processing. It finds particular application in a distributed printing system, in which a remote submitter of a print job interacts with an operator of a printer, for reducing the amount of time spent in proofing operations to improve a print job's perceptual quality, and will be described with particular reference thereto.
One of the goals of digital color management technology is to preserve the customer's perceptual intent when color documents are rendered on different devices, such as RGB displays and color printers. One problem is that the color gamut and emulation profiles of the printer limit the range of colors which can be printed. In some cases, the customer and printer may make coordinated use of the International Color Consortium (ICC) color profiling protocols. The ICC protocols are meant to ensure that color is rendered consistently across all devices. However, in order to use this technology properly and to achieve good results, every agent involved in the document lifecycle needs to adhere to a set of protocols and procedures which include correct and regular calibration of all devices and appropriate profiling and tagging of all digital documents involved. Achieving this also requires specialized color management knowledge and expertise. Common industry practice in color document production workflows does not adhere to these standards due to their complexity to implement. As a consequence, specifications and tolerances from the document initiator/designer to the printer are rendered differently on different devices and remain ambiguous throughout the workflow, with designers submitting files to printers without usable color management information, and printers manipulating document color without clear knowledge of the customer's intent.
When multiple copies are to be made, the print shop often generates a proof, which is a hardcopy of the document, to allow the customer to judge whether the rendered document matches expectations. This may proceed through several iterations with the customer providing notes or comments generated as feedback from previous iterations.
This process can require a large number of single-print tests (proofs) and is quite time consuming as each test must be manually set up and initiated on the printer's digital front end (DFE). At each iteration, the operator prints the document, trying to follow any specifications given by the submitter, and selecting several print settings available at the DFE, often in a fairly ad hoc manner, and sends the best result back to the submitter as a hard proof. The end result is that a digital color production workflow requires close collaboration between document creators and printers, and a costly and often iterated exchange of proofs in order to achieving pleasing color in the final product. This is a problem for the digital print industry, as the current workflow means the expected benefits of automation and efficiency have not been realized for key applications such as high quality, short-run, on-demand printing. It also represents a problem for commercial print shops in that it ties up the printing system in the repeated production of test prints, a process that is costly, time consuming, and an inefficient use of a digital printer that is designed not as a proofing machine, but for optimal performance over extended runs.